


All Your Rules

by stories_of_blue_and_gold



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017), bughead - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Jealousy, Love Triangles, M/M, Slow Burn, Some angst, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 09:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12679359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stories_of_blue_and_gold/pseuds/stories_of_blue_and_gold
Summary: Betty Cooper has been pining for Archie Andrews her entire time at Riverdale U, and he has barely acknowledged she existed. Finally fed up with hanging around Pop's Diner on the off chance of him showing up, she enlists the help of his roommate, Jughead Jones, to help her catch his eye. She thinks Jughead's rules are going to teach her to be more confident and a better flirt, but they end up doing much, much more than that...





	All Your Rules

**Author's Note:**

> This is a College AU where Jason's murder never happened. Instead of all meeting at Riverdale High, the gang comes together at Riverdale U, with many romantic twists and turns in store for them. 
> 
> Based veeeery loosely on the movie "He's Just Not That Into You" (2009).

Betty Cooper had first caught Jughead’s eye last Wednesday, sitting at the bar at Pop’s, nursing a strawberry milkshake for at least two hours, and compulsively checking her phone and then the door and then her phone again. She kept adjusting her outfit to make sure every inch of it lay flat and perfect. She gave up around 8pm, sighed dramatically, and left. Jughead hadn’t thought much about it until she returned on Friday, and Saturday, then Monday again and followed the same routine: milkshake, door checking, skirt checking, 8pm exit.

Normally he wouldn’t have said anything, but her plight was distracting him from being productive, so he slid out of his usual booth and sat down on the stool next to her.

“I think you’ve been stood up,” Jughead said.

She whipped around, startled by him, and he had to lean back to avoid being smacked in the face by her swinging blonde ponytail. She looked undoubtedly disappointed that it had been Jughead talking to her.

“Oh,” she said and laughed nervously. “Well, technically it's not a date. At least I don't think it is.” She paused. “I mean, I hope it is, but I don't want to get all psyched for something that might turn out to be nothing, you know?”

“Sure,” Jughead replied, an amused smile inching up his face.

“See, there’s this guy I've liked for a while,” she said, her eyes darting to the door to the restaurant again. “We had a few classes last year together and just so happen to be in the same lit class this semester - he was talking about coming here tonight and I said I'll see him there but we never made an exact time to meet up or anything.”

“Okay…”

“But now I don't want to leave in case he shows up and I'm not here and then what if he thinks I stood him up, you know?”

Jughead smirked. “Wouldn't he have to know about the date in order to be worried about being stood up?”

She tensed, as if remembering for the first time that she was saying all of this to a stranger, then slowly narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m, sorry,” she said in a much colder tone. “Can I help you with something?”

He stuck his hand out for her to shake. “Jughead Jones the third,” he announced.

She hesitantly took his hand. “Betty Cooper.”

The name made him freeze. “Betty Cooper?” he repeated.

Betty nodded, then yanked her hand out of the handshake he had forgotten to finish.

Betty Cooper… Betty Cooper... He’d heard his roommate talk about a Betty Cooper a few times before, in that oblivious way he always talked about girls who were clearly interested in him. “You wouldn’t happen to be waiting for Archie Andrews to show up, are you?”

Now it was her turn to freeze. “How would you know that?” Betty asked.

“He’s actually my roommate.”

“You,” she said, her cheeks beginning to flush. “You're Archie's roommate.”

“Afraid so” Jughead said with a nodd. “And I know for a fact he's not coming here tonight.”

Betty shrunk visibly in front of him, like if she could make herself small enough she could disappear from the embarrassment of it all. “Any chance of you not saying anything to him about all this?” Betty pleaded.

“Lips are sealed” Jughead promised. “My motto is what Archie doesn't know, he can't screw up.”

“Thanks,” she said, with a sigh, her face relaxing with relief. Then she peered at him and said, “I thought Archie’s roommate was named something like Mugsey... or Slimjim.”

“Nope,” Jughead said, very used to this question.  “Just your normal, average, completely run-of-the-mill sounding name - Jughead.”  

“Ah silly me,” Betty said with a smile.

“It's a childhood nickname because I had these great floppy ears as a kid,” he explained, showing them off to her. “Luckily I have handsomely grown into them.”

“Hm,” she said, fiddling with the straw in her empty milkshake glass. “Is that why you tuck them into that hat?”

Now it was his turn to narrow his eyes at her. “I’m sorry, weren't you just flattering me into keeping some kind of secret from Archie Andrews? What was it again...”

But instead of quipping back at him, Betty groaned and covered her face with her hands. “I always do this” she said. “Always. I get hung up on a guy and expect him to sweep me off my feet and he barely notices I'm alive.”

Jughead looked her over. Blonde hair, green eyes, lean build, short skirt. It was hard for him to imagine Betty Cooper not being immediately noticed in any room she walked into. “I'm sure that's not true” he said.

“Oh no,” she said, finger pointed in the air like she was telling off a child. “It absolutely is. One time in junior high, Frankie Valdez dated me for three weeks because he was elected class president, so he was in charge of planning the school dance and I basically did the whole thing for him, and then he broke up with me for Brigitte Reilly because he wanted to take her as a date instead of me.”

Jughead opened his mouth to say something sympathetic, but Betty wasn’t finished yet.

“Freshman year,” she continued. “My first kiss only happened because I had landed on Ambrose Pipps six times in spin the bottle and he had run out ways to joke kiss me. My first real boyfriend, Adam Chisholm, I caught him cheating on me in the back of Wendy Weatherbee’s car and his excuse was he had ‘forgotten’ we were still dating.”

“Wow,” Jughead said, not sure what else to say. “That’s rough.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

Jughead slid Betty’s empty glass in front of him and fished the uneaten cherry out, tossing it in his mouth. “Well maybe part of the problem is you,” he speculated, mouth full of cherry.

Betty stared at him like she couldn’t quite comprehend what he had said to her. “Excuse me? Is that supposed to cheer me up?”

“I'm not trying to cheer you up,” Jughead explained, pointing the cherry stem at her.  “I'm trying to stop you from hanging around diners all night on the off chance some idiot is going to wander through it's door and notice you.” He tossed the cherry stem back into her milkshake glass.

Betty sighed. “Yeah. Ok, this is pathetic enough. I’m leaving.” She stood up from her stool and brushed off her skirt.

“A rule of thumb, Betty Cooper?”

“What’s that?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips.

Jughead had to smile. Betty’s plight had been the most interesting part of his week. “Make sure Archie knows about the date next time,” he said. “With a time and everything.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” she said, accepting the teasing with a surprising bit of grace. “Thanks.”

“Jughead Jones’ Rules to Love, at your service.” He picked up his beanie from his head, and gave her a small bow.

She laughed. “Goodnight Jughead Jones.”

“Goodnight Betty Cooper.”

Betty paid her bill and started heading out of Pop’s when her phone pinged with a notification. She jumped to check it, as if Archie Andrews might have changed his mind at the last minute and decided tonight was actually a date after all.

“That would be me,” Jughead called out from across the diner. He had found her and friended her on facebook already.

Betty Cooper gave him another short, annoyed look before walking out the door.

 

_Facebook Messenger, Thursday, 5:18pm_

**Betty Cooper accepted your friend request.**

**Betty Cooper:** So Archie asked me out

 **Jughead Jones III:** Victory!

 **Betty Cooper:** At least, I think he did

 **Jughead Jones III:** Ah, so close. What are the circumstances exactly?

 **Jughead Jones III:** exact wording, please

 **Betty Cooper:** Well he asked if we could meet up Monday, 3pm in the library. He’s going to take me up on my offer to help him with his research paper. He only has like 2 sources and you need at least 6...

 **Jughead Jones III:** Betty

 **Jughead Jones III:** Sweet Betty

 **Jughead Jones III:** That’s not a date, it’s homework. He’s getting you to write his lit essay for him, not trying to initiate the sweet melodies of love

 **Betty Cooper:** Are you sure? It might be a date

 **Betty Cooper:** There’s a day and time and everything

 **Betty Cooper:** We both know about it

 **Betty Cooper:** I consider it progress

 **Jughead Jones III** : First of all, he’s not even willing to give up a weekend day for you. He’s really busy fri-sun?

 **Jughead Jones III:** I’ll answer that, he’s not. He will be in his underwear playing video games with me for most of the weekend

 **Betty Cooper:** Yeah, but maybe Monday just works best for him?

 **Jughead Jones III:** Second, is it at night?

 **Betty Cooper:** No

 **Jughead Jones III:** Third, is he doing anything FOR you?

 **Betty Cooper:** ….no, I guess not. But there were all these signs!

 **Jughead Jones III:** Like what?

 **Betty Cooper:** He called it a date!

 **Jughead Jones III:** He did?

 **Betty Cooper:** Well, a study date

 **Jughead Jones III:** I don’t think that counts

 **Betty Cooper:** He sat next to me all during class and our shoulders were touching sometimes and then he squeezed my arm when he thanked me

 **Jughead Jones III:** Good Lord, how did you fight off the sexual tension???!?!!1?

 **Betty Cooper:** You’re right. It’s nothing, isn’t it?

 **Jughead Jones III:** Nothing romantic

 **Jughead Jones III:** Sorry

 **Betty Cooper:** You really don’t think he likes me?

 **Jughead Jones III:** Does it matter? Point is, he’s not trying to date you.

 

_Facebook Messenger, Monday, 4:43pm_

**Betty Cooper:** So we had our homework date

 **Jughead Jones III:** Betty are you going to message me every time you have the slightest interaction with Archie?

 **Betty Cooper:** No

 **Betty Cooper:** Yes, probably. If we’re being honest here

 **Jughead Jones III:** Are you nearby Pop’s? Meet me there?

 **Betty Cooper:** Yeah, sure. It’s a date.

 **Jughead Jones III:** lol

 

Betty plopped down in Jughead’s regular booth at Pop’s. He glanced at her from over his laptop, his fingers still flying across the keyboard in an effort to finish his thought.

Betty looked at him, then peered around at his set up: at the lukewarm cup of coffee next to him, the remnants from his lunch hours ago, the stack of books and pile of notebooks he was using for reference. She scrunched up her nose. “What do you live here or something?”

Jughead kept typing. “No,” he said slowly, trying to keep his mind within his thought before he lost it. “But have you ever tried to be productive in a college dorm? Especially around Mr. Popularity as a roommate. Our door is permanently propped open.”

“Really? A lot of people in and out all the time? A lot of girls?” Betty asked, looking at her hands.

He paused his furious typing to look at her. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

Betty shook off the thought. “What are you working on?”

“The great american novel,” he replied in a grandiose voice.

She paused in the middle of pulling off her jacket. “Really?” she asked.

Jughead shrugged. “Probably not. Market is so saturated these days with the self-published masses it’s impossible to get noticed. But the joy is in the doing of the thing, right?”

Betty nodded but clearly was not thinking about the state of publishing. She fiddled with his empty cup of coffee. “Will you help me?” she asked.

“With…?” Jughead asked, his typing slowing down.

Betty waved her hands around vaguely. “With all of this.”

“I’m sorry, you want me to do what?” Jughead slowly closed his laptop and looked into the desperate eyes of Betty Cooper, a girl he barely knew, as she bit her bottom lip so hard, he thought it might burst open.  

“You heard me right,” Betty said in a small but firm voice.

Jughead raised an eyebrow. “What? You want me to help you seduce my roommate?”

“No!” she shouted, and then thought about it and shrugged. “Well maybe - not exactly. Just teach me what I'm doing wrong, why I can't attract a guy like Archie. He was so utterly disinterested the whole time we were hanging out. I might as well have been a giant computer screen he was googling answers to his homework on. I…might’ve asked around about you.”

Now both of Jughead’s eyebrows were raised. “Did you now?”

She nodded. “Pretty impressive dating history.”

Jughead smiled and gave a coy shrug. There was something nice about Betty Cooper wanting to know about him. “I do alright for myself,” he said, raising his coffee cup to his lips, only to realize it was empty and quickly lowering it back to the table before Betty noticed.

“Point is,” Betty said, “I clearly need to do more research here, and you’re my best option.”

“I dunno…” Jughead said. He shook his head, trying to think through the details of what Betty was asking and not really liking it.

She reached across the table and grasped his arm. “Please Jughead? Help me? Help me not be like this anymore. I can’t take it. I’m two minutes away from giving up and being a total shut-in loser the rest of my life.”

“Hey, don’t knock us shut-in losers,” he said, patting her hand. “We are a valuable asset to society. Who else would leave all those Youtube comments?”

Betty straightened up in her seat and looked Jughead in the eye, now fierce and determined. “In three months, my cousin is getting married. I want to bring Archie to the wedding as my date. Can you help me or not?”

“I dunno I don't want to get into anything weird,” Jughead said, scratching his head under his beanie. “Especially with my roommate involved.”

“I promise it won't get weird and I can make it worth your time.”

Jughead gave her a questioning look, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

Betty’s eyes widened. “Not like that!” she shouted, her cheeks growing warm at the suggestion. “I mean, I can help you with your writing. I'm the editor at the _Blue and Gold_ and my mom works at _The Register_. I can guarantee a weekly editors spot on the campus paper for you for every week you help me,” Betty said, growing more confident as the deal came together. “And anything I publish I'll show my mom so you have a chance of getting published there too. Just don't write anything weird.”

“Got it, so Harry Potter zombie smut crossovers stay on my blog.”

“Yes please.”

Jughead considered the offer. Being published on the regular did sound appealing. “Friday edition?” he asked. “Online and in print?”

Betty nodded, a confident smile spreading across her face. “Sure. Yes. Absolutely.”

Jughead leaned back in his booth and looked her over one more time. How hard could it be to get his thick roommate interested in a leggy blonde?

“You have yourself a deal Betty Cooper.”


End file.
